Goodbye (part 1)

After forty years working in libraries, including thirty-two years at APL – of which twenty-two have been in administration and the last fifteen as Director, I’m down to my last day before retirement.

It seems appropriate to share a few reflections and one librarian’s opinion on where we've been and where we’re going. I've seen massive changes in how we provide library service. At the UW-Memorial Library in 1972, we hand-stamped transaction cards each time a book was checked out, filed copies of the cards in call number order, and pulled them from the files when the books came back or when somebody wanted to place a hold. We had to maintain card catalogs for people to find anything and the catalog alone at Memorial took up a room larger than many small public libraries.

As a new reference librarian here in 1978, I could answer most questions by consulting our small card catalog, the Reader’s Guide to Periodicals (and its specialized cousins), and some selected reference books. We sent inter-library loan requests only a few places, using a teletype machine. Our media collections were LP records, a few filmstrips and – just for schools and groups -- 16 mm films. We had no community meeting spaces, very few adult programs, and none for teens.

So what’s changed? There’s been a revolution in electronic communications and thus in information. Databases and Google searches have replaced many reference books. Email and text messaging have replaced postal mail and telephone. So the library’s tradition “bibliographic instruction” of teaching people how to find things has gone electronic, in big-time fashion, with informal assistance in getting an email account and formal instruction in computer basics as precursors to doing meaningful research. "Library 2.0" has developed connections and interactivity, while shared automation networks have created huge virtual collections, making more library materials available to more people in more ready fashion than ever.

Growth in electronic media has meant that library materials are continuing to change, although book circulation is still huge, DVDs, digital recorded books, and eBooks are all increasing their share of library use. Downloadable electronic files continue to shake the publishing world and libraries are struggling to define their place and preserve their values in this rapidly evolving environment.

The library has long been a community center, but is more self-consciously developing that role with programs for all ages and interests, awareness of learning as a social activity, community meeting spaces, exhibits and displays and outreach via staff involvement with partner groups. Program attendance and meeting room use have grown rapidly. In Appleton, as in many places, we are more aware of the centrality of volunteers and friends in fulfilling the library’s mission. Many essential tasks are now done by volunteers as shrinking public funding has not been sufficient for the staff to grow as quickly as demands for services. There is an increasing reliance on donations and endowments. All of this leads to the need for a strong balanced friends organization providing a variety of support including volunteers, marketing, fundraising and advocacy.

With so many changes, are libraries still the same and relevant? Absolutely, and more than ever! The unchanging mission of the public library is for information equity, intellectual freedom, and a diversity of ideas, opinions and users. Public libraries support every individual’s ability to define and pursue their own opportunity, and the changing economics of information only increase the importance of supporting that for everyone. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 19 states: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.” The public library is an institution working to guarantee this right.

The library has long been a cultural center, which no longer means a book warehouse, if it ever did. We support everyone's access to the cultural record in myriad forms. Libraries are individually responsive to their communities, but everywhere support lifelong learning, the love of books and reading, and the chance for everyone to learning independently on their own terms.

The technology changes the techniques, but not the values.

I’m leaving my job, but I’m still a librarian and will continue to work for the values of libraries – particularly public libraries.

RFID transforms the library -- you can help!

A new project underway at the library is one of our biggest undertakings in years and has the potential to quietly change the way we do many things. Some of the changes will be invisible and some will be dramatic. It will make the library easier and faster to use, save money and improve service, but getting there will be a big job.

It's RFID: Radio Frequency Identification, increasingly used in many libraries for all the above reasons.

RFID will change all our inventory control processes, most visibly checkout and security gates, but also check-in, reshelving, and searching for items. To implement it, we'll need to place a radio-frequency tag in or on every item in the collection, then replace our self-checks, security gates and book-drops. We'll want to add additional self-checks, new bookdrops, and automated materials handling equipment for returned items. With almost 400,000 items in our collections, this is a huge undertaking, and it will be the better part of two years before it's done.

The reason for all the work and cost is to improve service and security while lowering costs. By automating processes, we can handle more business without more staff. We can shorten checkout lines as more people use self-checks. Some libraries get 90% of checkouts done at self-checks, and we're planning to get easy-to-use checkout stations that will unlock media cases and allow payment of fines. We'll still have staff to help with problems, but any routine checkout, picking up holds etc., should go much faster.

RFID will improve library use because we'll get things back on the shelves faster, and have better tools to find lost or misshelved items. It will speed the checkout process by using faster more reliable self-checks with more functions including unlocking media cases and accepting fine payments. RFID will help stop loss with security gates which can notify staff of specific items being taken away without being checked out.

There should be considerable cost saving over time. Not only should we lose fewer items, but checkout and return processes can be highly automated. New bookdrops will check items in as they are returned, and automated materials handling will use conveyor belts to sort returned items. As implementation of new equipment is phased in, we should be able to save staff through attrition, by not using people to do repetitive tasks, and by letting attrition in non-benefited staff reduce the workforce. Staff should be able to do more high-level tasks and help the public. If use increases substantially, we would not need to increase staff commensurately.

In the past, there have been some civil liberties concerns expressed about public library RFID. In the system we are putting in place, there should be no privacy issues or concerns for two reasons:

1. the radio frequency tags in our materials are very short range -- about 18" -- and require a dedicated reader on the frequency of the tags
   
2. the tags contain nothing more than the bar code just like is currently printed on the backs of our books. Without a link into our circulation database -- which has strict privacy safeguards, the RFID data is meaningless.

All of these advantages and improvements come at a cost. We need to tag our entire collection, and then we need to replace a lot of equipment. The investment will pay off for the taxpayers, but the project has to be capitalized up front -- and next year's completion of the project is pending a decision by our City Council. The Library Board has requested the dollars, and the Mayor has included their request in his executive budget proposal to Council.

We're keeping the cost much lower than it could have been by relying on volunteer labor to tag the materials. This will save many thousands of dollars over hiring temporary staff to do the project, or stringing it out for years to try to let current staff absorb the tagging duties. With volunteer help, we plan to be done tagging all the materials by next summer.

We need a lot of volunteers to help. Cheryl Kraft, the RFID Volunteer Coordinator, is recruiting and training volunteers to tag materials for RFID. She’s looking for volunteers who would be available for 1-2 hour blocks anytime during the library’s open hours to scan bar codes and tags and work with a lap top computer. The work is actually easy to learn and goes quickly. Anyone interested in learning more about this exciting new volunteer opportunity, contact Cheryl at ckraft@apl.org for more information.

10.5 reasons I love Google ... and one reason I don't entirely

1. Google fiber for communities: I admit it, this is seductive. But the idea that there could be highly affordable gigabit per second bandwidth widely available in our town opens up lots of possibilities for information delivery. The possibilities for a library are both daunting and enticing. Google's undertaking is a bold experiment to "make Internet access better and faster for everyone." It will be interesting for all of us to watch, and way beyond interesting for the selected communities.
   
2. Google search: simple, easy, useful and productive. This has become so essential, it spawned the modern verb for finding things out. Also the main reason I don't always love Google... see below.
3. Google books and the Library Project: there are surely a lot of intellectual property issues with regard to Google Books. Publishers, authors, and libraries have found themselves on different sides at different points in the conversation. But this is complex, and much of it not unique to Google. But my bottom line as a librarian: more books more accessible to more people is a very good thing.
   
4. The Google motto: ("Don't be evil") and staying true to it. It takes a lot for a corporation to stand up to the government of China and jeopardize income from the largest market on the planet. Intellectual freedom is worth fighting for and censorship should be resisted. Google has done so, earning praise from Amnesty International, the Centre for Democracy and Technology and many others.
   
5. Google Maps & Google Earth: although Mapquest and others have their uses, Google Maps made itself into the gold standard for finding places. This makes possible collaborative services like our local bus route service, Valley Transit's Trip Planner. And "street views", even if a bit creepy-seeming (Google is taking pictures of YOUR house), are incredibly handy for finding a party or a hotel.
   
6. Gmail: has changed the way I communicate, with threaded conversations, a great spam filter, managing multiple email accounts, chat, and access from my iPod and phone.
   
7. Google docs: improve productivity and communication and open up new possibilities. Share things between home and work. Write collaboratively. Publish on the web. Back up your work in the cloud. Google docs got it going on.
   
8. YouTube: you gotta love YouTube -- you're probably on it. There's the Appleton Fiber Channel, our Reference staff channel and more. What happened yesterday? Want to learn a song or a musical instrument? Where's that viral video everybody's talking about? Google didn't create YouTube, but it was a smart acquisition which they've polished without messing up.
   
9. Experimentation and fun: just look at Google Labs, an amazing idea incubator.
   
10. All the other Google apps, in more profusion than space permits -- check em out: smart applications that extend computing, increase communication, improve self-expression. Calendar (and shared calendars), Analytics, iGoogle, Translate (indispensible!), web hosting, and of course Blogger, which thousands use for free and whereon this document was created & resides. Google fosters opportunities to learn, experiment and grow.

and the one reason I don't love Google is not the fault of Google and is "not in our stars but in ourselves." You always find something in the last place you look. Except with Google, where you always find something the first place you look. As librarians and researchers know, we don't always know what we're looking for, though we often believe we do. Google search is so effective that the thing you find may immediately become the thing you wanted and needed. And if you can get through it without taxing your attention span, so much the better. While convenience is wonderful, it's not always the best thing, but it's easy to forget the pinch of salt.

This is not a flaw created by Google, but an example of how we need to adapt our learning styles in this brave new world. We live in interesting times, and Google is often the exemplar.

10.5. My friend Bryan Debbink works there, doing good work for Google Book Search, even if he is promoting Ann Arbor for a Google Fiber Community. Remember your home town, Bryan!

Thinking about library futures

While I have a lot of respect for business/marketing guru Seth Godin, he misses the mark in his blog posting on the future of libraries. While concern for the future is right, he's off-base in two respects:

1. Godin seems to assume that libraries are now irrelevant, that books are passe or that people can afford all the books they want and all other information is available free online. He writes...

   What should libraries do to become relevant in the digital age?

   ... and thus begins with the preconception that we're already irrelevant.
   

   They can't survive as community-funded repositories for books that individuals don't want to own (or for reference books we can't afford to own.) More librarians are telling me (unhappily) that the number one thing they deliver to their patrons is free DVD rentals. That's not a long-term strategy, nor is it particularly an uplifting use of our tax dollars.

   Let's break that down: our library circulates a lot of books that people either don't want to own or can't afford -- and that's not just reference books. DVDs are hardly the number one thing our library does: most of what we circulate is books and the number of books we circulate has been growing every year, and holding steady as a percentage of circulation for several years. It's also true that our library's DVDs are targeted toward a different market than video stores or Red Box, but books are still our number one.
   
2. Godin suggests our focus should be "train people to take intellectual initiative."

   ... the net turns things upside down. The information is free now. No need to pool tax money to buy reference books. What we need to spend the money on are leaders, sherpas and teachers who will push everyone from kids to seniors to get very aggressive in finding and using information and in connecting with and leading others.

   Even assuming he's recommending that librarians become his sherpas, it's not realistic to assume that our best efforts could turn everyone into aggressive leaders. By implication, this marginalizes those who may never fall, or grow, into that group. This smacks of an elitist perspective -- and while I know not everything we do has be factored by a lowest common denominator, it's a mistake to discount the value of making knowledge broadly available.

   Godin's assertion ot the contrary, information is not free, and that which is apparently free comes with hidden costs. Not everyone can afford even most of the books they'd like to read, nor highspeed Internet connections, nor the databases that hold information they're seeking. Not everyone will be sherpas, nor could the craftiest sherpa make everyone in our community into aggressive information seekers.

What libraries can do -- and many are, very effectively:

• recognize that our core functions of education, connection, information equity and opportunity have not changed, though the delivery methods have
• make books and other media available in a variety of formats to meet user needs -- and keep evolving with the times into downloadable ebooks, downloadable audiobooks and whatever other formats emerge to be effectively useful
  
• train people to become savvy consumers of information resources, help provide tools and instruction in their use -- and give needed assistance where savvy is lacking
• provide formal and informal community spaces
• have a sophisticated understanding that although the public needs equity and "information wants to be free," publishers and creators of information content want to put food on the table -- know where knowledge comes from and what it costs -- and use this understanding to creatively make resources available
• find a variety of channels to push information and learning opportunities out into their communities, through websites as digital branches, through social media, through cultural programs and games, through putting librarians at the table with community groups and through marketing resources -- helping leaders and non-leaders alike find ways to meet their needs
• actively promote family literacy

We're doing these things already. We're hardly sitting around unhappily contemplating our DVD circulation. Education and libraries are for everyone. We're looking to the future -- and it's exciting.

The Magic of Social Networks

This was the keynote presentation, from Lee Rainie, Director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project, at this year's Wisconsin Library Association conference.

The Magic of Social Networks

View more presentations from Pew Internet & American Life Project, Pew Research Center.

Information overload: the death of reference has been greatly exaggerated

The debate over how we read, perpetuated largely by media insiders, is starting to seem like little more than a distraction from the real problem: We have access to more information than ever, yet we do not know what to do with it. We are desperately information-illiterate.

Danielle Maestretti "Shelf Life: Information Overload", Utne Reader July-August 2009

This is very worthwhile reading, unambiguously concluding:

...media literacy should be a high school requirement, which seems like a no-brainer—10 or 20 years ago, even. For now, it seems that burden is being shouldered by school librarians, which would be a more promising scenario if they weren’t often among the first heads on districts’ budgetary chopping blocks.

For the out-of-school, significant information literacy can be gleaned from public librarians, who are info-literate by trade. Yes, even in this digital age—especially in this digital age—librarians are often the best place to start. They’re at reference desks and Radical Reference (www.radicalreference.info), on instant messenger and telephone, behind brightly colored “Ask a Librarian!” buttons on library websites. They’ll help you cut through the clutter and send you back into the world with a few literacy skills you didn’t even know you needed.

Amen.

This is where I disagree with Toni Garvey's statement that “Reference is not our niche.” Google has won this competition! This is true as far as it goes, but is easily oversimplified. I use Google and Wikipedia, too. But I still use our reference service. Google has drastically changed the reference niche, but hasn't eliminated it any more than television eliminated movies.

This is why our reference librarians are busier than ever. This why experimenting with new information delivery channels, such as chat and text, are an essential part of library service. As more people need and use our public access computers, and as more people try to cope with information overload at home and at work, we're there to help.

We wish that more people knew what we could do -- but on the other hand, we're already pretty busy.

Beyond Books: Libraries Lend a Hand in Recession

As seen on the Today Show, June 11.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

The Death of Content?

Aaron Schmidt has posted "libraries might not provide content in the future & it’s okay on Walking Paper. It's a provocative piece occasioned by some recent technology developments including:

• iPhone's Kindle ap, allowing any iPhone owner the ability to buy Kindle content (the same content Amazon will not license for library circulation, no matter how many Kindles we buy)
• Netflix offering streaming-only subscription plans, and new collaborations with the New York Times and Rotten Tomatoes, hastening the demise of the DVD as a physical artifact the same way that
• iTunes has become the world's biggest record store -- which is probably why Amazon is emailing me MP3 sales promos
• the demise of many newspapers, including the Rocky Mountain News and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on the brink
• more online content subject to restrictive DRM that will tend to squeeze out libraries
  

I agree that this is a serious concern, but disagree with where Aaron Schmidt seems to take it:

It really doesn’t matter if we stop providing content in the same way. It might be the best thing to happen to public libraries. Yes, there will be some access equality issues that need sorting, but if we don’t have to concern ourselves with making sure people have access to content we’ll have more time to create excellent programs and experiences based around content and conversation.

In response, I wrote:

Yes, we are increasingly a community center. But let’s not kid ourselves: it’s access to materials and the Internet that are bringing people to our doors. Kathleen de la Pena McCook has famously noted that information equity is the core value of our profession. It may be that in our provision of popular media we have veered too far toward Charlie Robinson’s “give ‘em what they want” and that the loss of ability to provide content will create more opportunities to “give ‘em what they need.”

But we should not let the baby slide out with the bathwater. I agree with Jonathon Rochkind’s comment above:

“we also ought not to sanguinely accept publisher’s attempts to illegalize libraries traditional content provision business in the “1s and 0s” market, like they would have liked to even in the print market. We should fight it with tooth and nail.”

In the interest of preserving equity of access to information, we need to utilize — and seek to improve agreements with — online content providers that see potential in our markets.

You note that “the real emphasis has been on providing shared experiences by gathering people together at hosted events. Connecting people in this way has more of a positive impact than sinmply sending someone home with a disc”. True as far as it goes, but the “shared experience” part of our service is still only a small fraction of the “circulating materials” part of our service. We need to intentionally prepare for changes, but I’m not ready to shrug off materials provision in the future just yet.

I think we need to be serious about content provision in new ways. It doesn't bother me that users will get new content in new ways -- I enjoy streaming Netflix too -- but we have an interest in assuring that diverse content is broadly accessible. Although equity of access and quality shared experiences are both critical for public library, the importance of access will continue to be primary for the foreseeable future. I suggest we need to do several things:

• continue collective action on DRM legislative issues. ALA has terrific resources on this, and we may currently have a more receptive audience in Washington than we've seen for awhile;
• our market muscle may not be huge, but it exists: we can encourage vendors to broaden offerings and make them easier to use and license, e.g. Overdrive's adoption of MP3;
• continue to develop other digital resources via
• digital and digitized collections
• robust vital websites
  
• chat reference
• mobile web
• continue to help our patrons know that however content and information channels change, however the digital divide evolves, librarians have a commitment to helping them get access to the resources they need;
• continue to do our best to work with currently available media -- seems like a no-brainer, but people are borrowing more books than ever.

Libraries' role as content providers cannot be a warehouse function only, but needs to look forward as well as backward. Libraries' role as an agency of transformation needs both sacred communal space and connection to unlimited possibilities. Digital excitements notwithstanding, the novel and the picture book seem stronger than ever and not likely to go away soon. I'm glad teens can play Guitar Hero here, but that doesn't supplant the importance of a parent with a toddler in their lap reading Goodnight Moon. Some parts of libraries' transformative power are more intimate than they are collective.

But as caleb notes in a thoughtful response on Bibliographic Wilderness: "we are going to work harder than ever". That much we all seem to agree on.

Ten Trends & Technologies for 2009

Provocative as usual, Prof. Michael Stephens has written a lengthy, dense, and intense posting on "Ten Trends & Technologies for 2009." His list was obviously assembled over time and with great detail, including implications for libraries and for library education. Full of examples including nuggets and head-scratchers, this is recommended reading for library planners, technologists and marketers. Noted trends include:

• The Ubiquity of the Cloud
• The Changing role of IT
• The Value of the Commons
• The Promise of Micro-Interaction
• The Care & Nurturing of the Tribe
• The triumph of the Portable Device
• The importance of Personalization
• The impact of Localization
• The evolution of the Digital lifestyle
• The shift toward Open Thinking

Stephens concludes by deriving:

Five Related Things We Just Can’t Ignore in Libraries:

• Privacy
• The Environment
• The Nature of Information
• Generation C
• Telling Our Story Well to Funding Bodies

Download a PDF of Michael Stephens' entire "Tame the Web" post here.

Social trends 2009

From Frank Martinelli's Nonprofit Picks of the Week blog comes a link to trends -- as identified by change.org -- that will affect nonprofits, especially "social entrepreneurs." Many of these dovetail closely with our library's planning conversations; all are worth considering.

• Globally-Engaged Education
• Measuring Social Impact
• Mobile Technology
• Online Action Platforms
• Blended Value Investing
• Green Innovation
• A Partner in the White House

More at http://socialentrepreneurship.change.org.

Great WI library websites

The Wisconsin Library Association Media and Technology Section (MATS) has announced the 2008 "Webbie" awards in the following categories:

Best Innovative Use of Technology in Providing Library Services: LD Fargo Library YouTube Channel
Site designer: Gerard Saylor

Best Reference Site: Project Play
Site designers: Beth Carpenter, Joy Schwarz, Stef Morrill

Best Site for Kids: Monona Public Library
Site designer: Erick Plumb

Coolest Design: Beloit Public Library
Site designer: John Burns

Most Accessible Site: Wisconsin's Water Library
Site designer: UW-Madison, Aquatic Science Center

Best of the Best: LD Fargo Library YouTube Channel
Site designer: Gerard Saylor

Congratulations to all the winners, and a special shout-out to Project Play, which provided a great educational tool for our staff.

Tasha Talks Tech @ FVLC

Our good neighbor Tasha Saecker, Director the the Menasha PL, did a presentation on libraries and technology at a recent Fox Valley Library Council meeting. For those of us who couldn't make the meeting, she posted her PowerPoint on her Sites & Soundbytes blog -- thanks, Tasha!

Technology And Libraries

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own.

The Future of the Internet

The Pew Internet & American Life Project has released "The Future of the Internet III", a non-scientific survey of anticipated trends. Key findings reported by the Pew:

• The mobile device will be the primary connection tool to the internet for most people in the world in 2020.
• The transparency of people and organizations will increase, but that will not necessarily yield more personal integrity, social tolerance, or forgiveness.
• Voice recognition and touch user-interfaces with the internet will be more prevalent and accepted by 2020.
• Those working to enforce intellectual property law and copyright protection will remain in a continuing arms race, with the crackers who will find ways to copy and share content without payment.
• The divisions between personal time and work time and between physical and virtual reality will be further erased for everyone who is connected, and the results will be mixed in their impact on basic social relations.
• Next-generation engineering of the network to improve the current internet architecture is more likely than an effort to rebuild the architecture from scratch.

My inferences for public libraries:

• we need to pay serious attention to mobile computing
• more people will expect social web features as a norm
  
• we'll stay caught in the crossfire on intellectual property issues
• informal self-directed education will remain important
• we'll need to be creative in developing information delivery channels

It's worth looking at full report details.

The coolest thing you can't see

A story in BBC News highlights the launch of a multimedia digital online library for Europe. A joint effort of more than 1,000 organizations including the British Library and the Louvre, the new Europeana will include "more than two million books, maps, recordings, photographs, archive documents, paintings and films." The site will be presented in 23 languages.

Unfortunately, this is such a great idea that the site was overwhelmed by users: 10 million hits per hour. The site is now down for a few weeks being re-tooled for higher capacity.

And I thought our library had bandwidth issues.

Project Play @ WLA

I'm missing the state library conference -- durn it. But I'm glad to be able to follow some things on the WLA Blog. One presentation I would've enjoyed was the one about Project Play. Not surprisingly, however, Beth Carpenter has nicely blogged the presentation. The whole thing's worth reading as a nice summary of the program, but the slideshow and video are great for a quick overview.


Check out the full post -- lots of great links. Thanks again to Beth, Joy and Stef!

Library 2.0 makes good neighbors

I see that the Lester Public Library over in nearby Two Rivers, WI has gotten some well deserved attention as part of a presentation by David Lee King. Several of the slides hold up the 2.0 resources developed by Lester staff. Kudos to Director Jeff Dawson & the good folk of T'rivers!

Making the catalog easier

Our friends at the Outagamie Waupaca Library System come up with useful information for one of most Frustrating and Frequently Asked Questions. This will make our already terrific InfoSoup shared online catalog easier to use by helping you access your account and other functions even if you forget your PIN. Nice!

Phishing Scams in Plain English

Common Craft scores again! This one should be mandatory; sophisticated users may know it already, but this is a great presentation of a problem that manifests among library public access Internet users, as well as in our work and home email accounts.

The downside of self-checks?

In today's Post-Crescent, columnist Jim Olski wrote a piece:

Talk is cheap, so why does it keep disappearing?

After taking a copy of Charles Dickens' "Our Mutual Friend" off the shelf, I headed to the checkout counter at the Appleton Public Library.

I placed my library card on the automatic checkout gizmo and placed the book on top of that. A piece of paper printed out and, by golly, the task was done.

"They've got this almost perfected," I thought ...

Gosh, sounds nice. But Olski is not writing to praise the library, but to deliver a jeremiad on the loss of conversation in an automated world. He goes on to say:

I mourn the passing of one more human interaction, the friendly chat while checking out a book.

Sure, it's a big library, and we must be efficient, but the inevitability of progress comes with a cost, and here's what I think it is: The niceties of civil discourse among nodding acquaintances tempered our conversation among strangers, so that we didn't always meet so angrily as My Side and The Other.

Add the librarian to the bank teller and the gas station attendant.

And I get it. The library is about building community, and that means creating opportunities for conversations -- among library users as well as between staff and patrons. Right now, about 25% of our checkouts go through our five self-check machines. Some studies of the library have called on us to increase that percentage number, in the name of added efficiency. We're recruiting volunteers to help teach people how to use the self-checks (and the volunteers will talk with people).

But in looking for more efficiency, its important that we keep that human interaction -- and we have. Olski's concerns notwithstanding, we keep our desk staffed, and no-one is required to use the self-check. Full service checkouts always available.

I responded:

Jim -

Interesting ideas, but two reactions:

1) There are always at least two people working the Appleton Library checkout, because computers are lousy at solving nonstandard problems and giving you human interaction. We agree: it's too important to lose!

2) If the budget and staff would increase as fast as the use, we might not need self-check machines. But they can't. Our circulation last month was up 68% over our circulation in Sept. 2000. Can you imagine your taxes supporting a 68% increase in library staff in 8 years? Efficiency is a mandate, not a choice.

But we still have people for you to talk with, if you're willing to wait in line, and the library works in lots of ways to increase community conversations.

I haven't read "Our Mutual Friend"; how was it?

Terry

I'm not necessarily a fan of automating things that can be done with personal service, but I am a fan of continuing to provide good library service to a growing community. Sometimes that means figuring out how to do more work without more staff.

Web Search Strategies in Plain English

Oh, Commoncraft, you've done it again! More good instruction from the people who "make complex ideas easy to understand using short and simple videos." Thanks to Carpe Hootem for the tip.